Effects of Religion and Tradition on Marriage Stability and Divorce in Türkiye

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the increasing divorce rate in Türkiye within the context of tradition and religion. The central question of the research is whether religion and tradition can resist divorce. Within the scope of the research, a new secondary dataset was prepared using the microdataset of the Türkiye Family Structure Survey (TAYA) conducted by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TURKSTAT) in 2021, focusing on variables related to the relationship between religion, tradition, and divorce. The relationships between variables in this dataset were analyzed and interpreted using various statistical tests. Statistical tests were performed using the latest version of JASP (0.95.4). According to the research findings, religiosity and traditional practices have a significant protective effect on divorce. Strong significant differentiation relationships were found between independent variables, such as religiosity, traditional and consensual marriage forms, religious marriage, and consanguineous marriage, and dependent variables related to divorce. The research demonstrates that traditional attitudes and practices, along with religiosity, continue to have a strong and protective effect on marriages in Türkiye. Given the general and steady increase in divorce rates in Türkiye, this study finds that religious belief levels, family consent, and traditional acquaintance networks constitute statistically significant and strong protective barriers to divorce practices, while trends toward secularization and individualization legitimize divorce processes at a normative level.

Keywords

• Divorce
• marriage
• religion
• tradition
• Türkiye Family Structure Survey

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